Letters
by BlueDecembers19
Summary: He is desperate to talk to someone. She is there. So he writes a letter, and places it in the abandoned locker 192. An unlikely friendship begins. What happens when these two strangers begin to fall for one another? Alternate Universe. Different to most high school stories, they are in character (hopefully) and it has an actual plot.
1. Letter One

**A/N:** Welcome to my new story! This is partly inspired by _Perks of Being a Wallflower_ (brilliant book, but not recommended for under-fifteens, I think) and somewhat inspired by Melina Marchetta's books. If you have not read any of her books; then what are you doing?! Go pick one up right now.

**Summary:** He is desperate to talk to someone. She is there. He writes a letter, and places it in the abandoned locker 192. An unlikely friendship begins. What happens when these two strangers begin to fall for one another? Alternate Universe. Different to most high school stories, they are in character (hopefully) and it has an actual plot.

**Rating:** **T** for mild, offensive language. Don't worry; I don't swear a lot.

**Disclaimer:** All recognised characters belong to Rick Riordan, and I in no way own _Percy Jackson and the Olympians. _

* * *

**Letter ONE **

_To whomever,_ he writes and crosses it out a moment later. "No," he mutters absentmindedly to himself. _Dear whoever,_ he starts again. But that's not right either. He scrunches the bland paper in frustration and winces as the paper slides smoothly across his chlorinated skin, leaving a streak of stinging pain and dots of red. He winces and instinctively sucks on his wounded pinky finger. It tastes of a lingering chemical – pool chlorine, and his hasty breakfast at the Starbucks near school.

He sighs and tries to ignore the scraping of chalk on the blackboard; math was never his best subject. And he bends down over his table, tearing out a new piece of paper…

* * *

Dear complete and utter stranger who I've probably met before but most likely do not know,

_Yes, that's a good beginning._*

You probably don't know who I am. That's okay because I probably don't know who you are either. Why am I writing this, you ask? I really don't know. I _really_ do not know, but they say writing about it will help. And that's what I need. I just need someone to talk to. It's okay if you never reply; I don't expect you to, actually. I just need to know that someone's there.

I won't tell you who I am, I'm sorry but if this letter ever falls into the wrong hands…

Okay I'll stop hinting at things I can't say.

How are you? Wait, that's a stupid question 'cause you'll probably never reply.

I just need to talk, okay? Maybe you've already gone and ripped this up into a million teensy, little pieces or burned it into smoldering crisps or fed it to your dog. I don't know; maybe all this dark, blotchy ink is going to waste, but that's okay. I'm already feeling better. Even though my life is shit right now. Sorry. I don't normally swear.

Yesterday, something happened. I don't think I can tell you what. But it's big. It's really been building up for months now but it wasn't really 'til yesterday that… I really can't say anymore.

Are you frustrated with me? I bet you are (if you're still reading this, that is.)

You know what; maybe you'll be a little happier with me if I told you a bit about myself. But I can't give away too much. Okay, here goes:

1) I am male.

2) My absolute favorite color is blue; therefore:

3) I go out of my way to eat as much blue food as a possibly can. For instance, I had a doughnut with blue icing this morning, and my mother used to bake me blue, choc chip cookies _No, that memory's too painful_.

4) I've never met my father before. I don't know what he looks like and I don't even know what his name is. Sometimes, I wish he was, instead of my stepfather.

5) And finally… my favorite place in the entire world is the beach. I love the sound of the waves on the sand and the smell of brine and the wind in my hair. It helps that the only memories I have of feeling safe took place at the beach…

Okay. I hope you're satisfied for now. Because I really don't know what else to write. I felt like before I was just regurgitating (okay, that does not sound good, sorry) all my thoughts and now it's all suddenly stopped.

But thank you. Thank you for being here even though I haven't given you this letter yet and I have no idea how to give it to you surreptitiously (yes, I do _try_ listen in English) and I have no idea where I'm going to leave it for you to find. But I'll figure it out. Even though you have not yet set eyes on this piece of hastily ripped out paper from my math book. The faint blue lines are pretty much filled up now. But who needs math, anyway?

Regards, (my mother always says to end a letter with 'regards' even though it sounds odd to me,)

A Friend

p.s. What does p.s. even stand for, anyway?

* * *

_There,_ he thinks to himself. It's done. Written. Finished. The inky black scrawl stares up at him and the thin paper suddenly feels delicate and breakable under the pressure of his large hands. Everything is out on the smudged, untrimmed paper.

He folds it in half. Twice. A sense of finality settles on him and he lets out a breath he's been holding in subconsciously.

And then the bell rings.

* * *

But where to place it? He ponders as he walks down the bustling, icy-blue halls.

He flashes a half-hearted smile at everyone who says 'hi' in the halls. He is by no means the most popular guy in school, far from it, actually, but he is known for being friendly to everyone, and is in return, liked and respected.

A sudden flash to his right stalls him. It is the tarnished silver keyhole of an old, abandoned locker. Locker 192. As long as really anyone could remember, Locker 192 had never been occupied; it just swung pathetically on its unoiled hinges whenever there was a breeze. It was the perfect place to hide his note. Hopefully, isn't so remote that no one would actually find it.

Percy subtly trails behind his friends, and they are too animated in their conversation to notice him lagging behind. It has been around five minutes since the beginning of the lunch period and all stragglers have reached their final destinations, leaving him quite free to lodge his folded fragment of his thoughts (i.e. that piece of torn notebook paper) into the cobwebbed cracks of the lonely gloom.

He swings the door shut with a resounding finality. There. It is done.

* * *

He rejoins his friends, Thalia and Nico, (who are, incidentally, also his cousins). Neither of them knew their fathers as well; they only knew that their fathers had been brothers. His other friends, Silena, Beckendorf, the Stoll brothers (Connor and Travis), Katie, Chris and Clarisse are there too. Although Clarisse had attempted to dump his head into the _girl's_ toilet back in freshman year, the two of them had formed some form of bond – perhaps frenemies would be the right word.

"Where've you been?" Thalia asks, half a fry sticking out of her mouth.

"Uh… my locker," he answers lamely and hopes no one would see through his blatant and bad lying.

"But you never go to your locker," Nico protests. Damn that nosy little kid.

Percy just shrugs and drops into his seat.

"Well," Thalia rises and slings her pitch black bag over one shoulder. "If you're going to be so unresponsive and boring today, I'm going to go sit with Annie."

'Annie' is Annabeth Chase; the smartest girl in the school; beautiful, cold and an absolute freaking genius, even though she has dyslexia and ADHD. Only Thalia is allowed to call her Annie. Percy remembers that one time in freshman year; he was trying to be friendly and had called her that. Before he'd known what was happening, she'd judo-flipped him, had one knee pressed _hard_ against his stomach, and her forearm cutting off his air supply at his neck.

Her dark gray eyes had flashed dangerously as she'd whispered threateningly into his ear: _don't you_ ever_ call me that again._ He'd never heard the end of hit, and it was the last time he'd ever spoken to her.

"Percy? _Percy!"_ a voice says.

"I'm sorry?"

"You were out of it for a while. Are you all right?" It was Katie. She gives him a soft, warm smile.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just tired." The truth is: he hadn't gotten any sleep the night before. He rubs his eyes and stands to leave. "I'm not hungry," he decides.

And he leaves without another word, leaving his friends staring worriedly at his retreating back. He heads to the pool. He knows he's not meant to be there without adult supervision, but as captain of the school swimming team, he's sure the coach won't mind. The water (even though it's heavily doused with chemicals) is the only place he can think.

On his way there, he passes Locker 192 and he can't resist the urge to check if it's still here. It is. The slip of paper is mostly hidden – besides the one peeping corner. He passes Annabeth Chase. Her blonde curls are left down today, and bounce with each step she takes. Percy nods at her politely and somewhere in the back of his mind, wonders why she's there – wasn't Thalia hanging out with her? She doesn't nod back, only stares at him with her usual unnerving intensity.

He shakes it off. He's at the gym now and into the boy's locker room, which perpetually smells of sweat and must. A minute later, he's changed and sprinting out.

He runs up and launches himself off the edge, breaking the smooth, flat surface of the water.

* * *

***Italics in the letter mean his thoughts while writing it. **

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**Thank you so much for reading! Please tell me what you thought (i.e. review). :D**


	2. Letter Two

**A/N:** Hey everyone! Thank you so, so much for all the reviews! You should see me; I'm doing my 'Taylor Swift awards show face.' Thank you so much!

Originally, this was going to be from Annabeth's point of view, but I felt like it needed some more background from Percy before I could write from her. It wouldn't come out.

Sorry for the lateness. I have my final exams starting this Friday, and the past few weeks I've been furiously studying and cramming. But I had to stop and write you this chapter.

Hope you like it.

**Disclaimer:** _Percy Jackson and the Olympians_ does not belong to me.

* * *

**Letter TWO**

_It's gone,_ is his first thought when he furtively checks the locker between first and second period. There is nothing there beside the usual dust and ethereally wispy cobwebs. He's late for second period now, but he has Mr. Blofis who probably won't care.

With a hurried glance behind, he sprints off to his next class. He can't afford to be late too many times. The lingering echoes of his footfalls resonate around the cold, empty halls, and the leaflets on the walls flap as he runs past.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

* * *

Dear someone who perhaps knows me a little better now, even though I still have no idea who you are,

Wow. That was long.

I see you've taken my last letter. Well, at least that's what I assume, since it's gone. Thank you for taking time to read it, (I hope you have), but somehow, just putting my thoughts into words is therapeutic. (Like I said before, I _do_ try listen in English.) It does help that I have Mr. Blofis, though. Doesn't his name sound like blowfish? Wait, you're not him, are you? If you are, then: sorry Mr. Blofis!

Nothing's happened as of right now. And I'm still feeling extremely guilty for not telling you what happened. And I still can't say. I'm sorry for being so cryptic, I truly am. But I don't know whether I can trust you – I know that's insulting, but put yourself in my shoes. Wait, you can't; you don't know enough about my situation. Have I told you how sorry I am about that? I guess I probably have.

Maybe this will help:

My shoes that I'm wearing right now are my favorite pair of tattered, sky blue Converse. They've been graffitied over in black and red sharpie, by my cousins. I pretty much wear them everywhere. Oh darn, I can't wear those anymore, can I? You'll know who I am. Damn. I'm also wearing a comfy, gray hoodie and dark jeans.

Do you want to see the inside of my room? I'll give you a description:

You see the walls – the blue ones. Yes, those. And the sheets on my bed – the blue-green ones. My desk is pretty empty because I can't concentrate with too much stuff. There are a couple of photos: one of my mother and me at the beach, and one of my friends. My room is pretty bare 'cause my stepfather –

Anyway, I can hear these noises from outside. My stepfather G*** is playing poker with his beer buddies and they're shouting loud obscenities at each other. I can hear them ordering my mother –

Never mind.

I just feel so damn helpless, sometimes.

You know what? Ignore everything I just said. You don't need to get involved. Just being there, even if it's just imaginary you, helps more than you could ever imagine.

Ugh. His friend Ed is attempting to burp the national anthem. I swear, it's an insult to American society, and I can _smell_ it _all_ the way from here.

Sometimes, I just wish I could have one day – just one day of a normal life. Probably like yours. I don't mean to be bitter or jealous or make you feel guilty about it. I'm just telling the truth.

You know that feeling when you're underwater for a _long_ time, and you literally can't breathe anymore, lights start dancing in specks in front of your eyes and you feel like you're going to burst, and you just want to let it all go. But then, at that very last moment, you come up, because there's just that one something that stops you from staying down there in the watery oblivion. And that first shuddering breath feels so good – so deliciously, sinfully, unnaturally good. It feels like this calm as settled into your highly-strung body, and you feel like you could just fall asleep, warm and safe. Does that make any sense? Probably not. I don't know why I'm telling you this. But that security is what I want to feel, but it always evaporates like the mist your breath makes on cold, winter mornings.

You don't need to hear this.

Do you ever sit and wonder about the lives of other people around you? How easily that life could've been yours? Do you ever think about 'the butterfly effect'? Do you think that truly going back and changing the smallest detail could impact so profoundly on _everything_ in our entire lives?

I want to go back and change that one thing – to prevent my mother from mar –

I really need to think before I write.

How was your day?

My day went something like this:

1. Wake up early to _try_ study for my history test. The key word here being 'try'.

2. Buy a coffee from Starbucks.

3. Spill coffee all over shirt.

4. Rush to school to try wash it off.

5. The stains don't come out, so borrow a friend's shirt. Three sizes too large and hot pink in color.

6. Get laughed at.

7. Take history test.

8. Fail miserably. Who needs to know how many wives Henry VIII had, anyway? It's not going to help any of us get girlfriends…

9. Go home, still in huge shirt.

10. Have stepfather –

11. Write letter to you.

12. Pen's running out of ink…

Is there anything else to say?

I hope you understand me a little better now.

Regards,

A Friend

p.s. Sorry about the smudges of chocolate on the edges. I had a sudden craving for candy.

* * *

This time, it's between sixth and seventh periods when he leaves the letter.

He tells Grover to save him a seat in World History, but he knows that Grover won't get there much faster than him. He's had a disability in his legs since birth, although Percy knows that even that does not stop him from running to the cafeteria on cheese enchilada day.

He wonders who it is that's receiving his letters. He wonders as he makes his way to class.

They get their history exams back and he can see Grover eagerly – or nervously, he's not sure – bouncing and tapping his fingers against the scratched surface of the table.

D. A cold feeling coils at the pit of his stomach. He has promised his mother that he'd get better marks this year. Bright red markings crisscross the entire page in a web of incorrectness.

_Anne Boleyn was his second wife, and no, she was not a horse. _

and

_Incorrect. Henry VIII did not have his wives killed by poisonous snakes. _

He glances over at Clarisse, who is proudly flashing her 'C –' mark. He tries to decipher the markings on her paper. They went something like this:

_No, Catherine of Aragon was not a ****ing, worthless *****. _

_And no, Henry VIII did not kill his wives by 'torture by having them do useless history exams', thank you very much. _

Percy groans and slumps forward on his desk – which was a big mistake. The previous owner has dumped all their pencil shavings over the desk, so Percy sits up with a gray streak smudging down his face like an old bruise. Even Clarisse has a better mark than his, and with _those_ answers.

He cannot imagine the look of crushing disappointment on his mother's face when he returns. And he knows that she will not be angry, which only makes it worse.

Distracted, he almost misses the flash of gold flying past his classroom. The unmistakable gold of curly, blonde hair.

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**So… how'd you like this chapter? Please review. Constructive criticism is also very much appreciated. Thanks! **


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